Swallowed In The Sea Larry Oneshot
by feelsforbreakfast
Summary: I think maybe the problem was that I loved him too much and he never really knew.


There was nothing beautiful about how it ended. Sometimes when things fall apart they do so gracefully, like a house, breaking down with dusty floors and grimy windows, and stairs that rot until they collapse. We didn't end like that.

We exploded, a firework that keened all the way to tip of the sky before bursting in a deluge of fire and noise, drifting back to the ground like dying stars. It was the jealousy that tore us apart. It was the pressure. It was the never enough. It was the worry. It was her. It was the doubt. It was the buildup that crushed heavy on our shoulders until we couldn't take it anymore.

Many people could go lifetimes without the privilege of loving someone like Harry Styles. The privilege of being loved by someone like him. I remembered the day he got my love inked onto his skin, a promise with a silent s, tracing my fingers over it in the weeks after and whispering promises of my own into his skin.

Maybe we loved each other too much, igniting and burning in a flash of bright light that blinded everyone around us. In the end it was our love that tore the band apart, no matter how many times Liam insists it was a mutual decision to end it.

Liam turned out okay. He married the dancer, the girl he loved in that sweet way of his, and went solo. He checks up on us, sends us christmas cards with his children bouncing around a glittering tree. His only baggage is us.

Niall was lost at first. We spent weeks together in some apartment we bought, barely speaking, like paper ghosts drifting through an empty world, living off the old money. It's the money that makes me sick. I'd give it all back for one more day as Louis Tomlinson of One Direction, who still had four best friends and a boy who loved him like he never deserved. Niall made his way back to life slowly, working with Liam and playing guitar while he sang.

They tried a duet once. Niall fled halfway through, cheeks stained with tears. Two boys wasn't enough to fill the stage anymore.

Zayn broke when the band did. I wasn't there for the breakdown, too consumed in my own explosion, only witnessed the aftermath. In the years after he would visit me. Sometime's I'd catch him humming What Makes You Beautiful underneath his breath. I don't think he knew he was doing it.

He spent a lot of time hiding, in his apartment, in mine, writing some of the most beautiful poetry I've ever read, about spotlit stages and blurry nights and some golden boy he could never quite reach.

It was January, we were drunk and I asked him who he was.

He looked at me, lashes sending shadows down the purple hollows under his eyes. "You know who it is."

I did.

I still don't really know what happened to Harry.

I saw him for the last time four years ago.

We fought a lot before that night, the night where everything ended. About her, about hiding what we felt, about the money. I never wanted to hide it, not really, but I thought I could save the band by locking us away. It was stupid, naive to think that hiding could save us.

For a while, we made it. We made it on secret signals and whispered I love yous in dark hotels rooms. In his body curled against mine on rumbling tour buses and apologies about things I couldn't change.

And then there was the argument. The denial. They'd never made us do it, tell them a direct lie. It was always dancing around it in various vagueties.

_People genuinely think we're in a relationship._

_ It was funny at first but now it is actually hard to deal with as I am in a relationship._

_ Me and Harry are best friends._

But then they did.

Looking back, I don't think I could've said the words that maybe could've saved us for just a little bit longer. The words that drove Harry away from me, that made him think I never really loved him.

I don't know how he possibly could have thought that.

He yelled, asked me how I could lie to them, all those girls who believed in us. How I could be so selfish, so awful and terrible.

How I could do that to him.

How could I do that to him.

If there's anything I regret, it's that he won't ever know how much he changed me. He made me the best person I could have been, twisted me up and made me want to be better. I wanted to give him the stars in the sky, to make him a universe where nothing was allowed to hurt him.

That was the worst part of the fight I think, watching as he lost faith in the person he thought I was. He used to look at me like I was something special, something better than what I ever could be. I never deserved him.

Sometimes I look through old pictures of us, videos from before. I can't tell if it makes it better, seeing his fingers on my skin, lips at my ear, something like love in his eyes. I think it might make it worse, but that doesn't mean I can stop.

I still haven't quite forgotten how his mouth tastes, the soft skin of his hipbones that I used to trace with my lips and now only trace in half lucid dreams that burn like fire when I wake up. But I don't quite remember how his eyes used to look in the morning. How his feet sounded on the carpet as he padded over to sit by me. Just how much milk he liked in his cereal. The exact way he kissed me.

We did it all for the money, for those who said it was best for the band. It all seemed worth it when we were young and rich and never imagined love would be the sacrifice. Sitting in this empty house, bank account full and heart empty, I don't think it was worth it at all.

I'd give it all up for Harry; the fame, the band, all the money in the world. But I guess you don't get to choose.

I think I should have known that I wouldn't be able to keep him. I just hope he's happy now, that he's found someone who will love him the way my body wouldn't let me. Who can hold his hand in public and press their lips to his even when everyone's looking.

But I hope he remembers me. That sometimes he'll hum _Kiss Me_ under his breath and remember what it was like to be loved.

Because I remember, I always will.


End file.
